Weather Report: Tom Skilling 7-Day Forecast WGN-TV Weather Center.

Lightning, Unseasonable Warmth And Limited Summer Rain Spread Flames

Region of Alaskan wildfire devastation dwarfs Lower 48 blazes

July 17, 2004|By Tom Skilling

Though wildfires in the Lower 48 have been in the news in recent days, Alaskan wildfires have now burned an area three times as large, an area equivalent to Delaware, Rhode Island, half of Connecticut and the District of Columbia combined. The scorched region makes up 75% of the more than 4 million acres charred to date within U.S. borders, Thirteen new fires Friday brings to more than 80 the number of active fires in the state.

Smoke is so thick in parts of Alaska's interior that unmanned U.S. Coast Guard heat-sensing drones and helicopter mounted "radiometric", heat-seeking cameras have been deployed to pinpoint flames for residents and firefighters alike. It's the third-worst wildfire season since records started in 1955--only 1969 and 1957 were worse. And, while most fire seasons wind down after mid-July, an atmospheric "blocking pattern" locks warm, dry high pressure in place for the foreseeable future. T-storms Thursday and Friday produced 11,000 cloud-to-ground lightning strokes, igniting more fires than their rains extinguished. Summer rainfall near Fairbanks has been 0.35"--only 17% of normal.